By webmaster Thursday June 11th 2009 3:00 Central European Time

Surfing the various environmental blogs on the Internet, there seems to be a consensus among most environmentalist that people should prepare themselves for a future with far less consumptions of consumer goods and energy than they are used to today. I know that some people, who are into green tech, would like to challenge that idea and portray green technology as an alternative that will let us continue business as usual. Personally, I do not share the optimism of the latter. I do believe that no matter what clever things we can come up with, it will still be necessary to power down.

But one thing is that people should learn to settle for less, when it comes to the quantity of material goods that is reasonable to expect in a life time. Another paradigm I would like to see challenged goes to the quality of the things we do settle for. Things today are “made to break” instead of “made to last.” I am not sure exactly when the “made to break” idea originated. I think it happened way before my time. I am 41. As to where it originated, several articles on the net like this book review from the Harvard University Press, claims that it is an American idea. Which comes as no surprise, I might add.

Indeed, many things on the market today are really made not to last much past the warranty period. I think we need to resurrect two good old principles in engineering. Things should be made durable, and they should be designed with ease of repair in mind.

Further reading:

• Book review : Here comes everybody
• Book review : The Transition Handbook
• The brutal end of the growth paradigm
• Website review: Open courseware, bringing higher learning to everyone
• Techies, from heroes to nerds and back?

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